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Everything posted by wefalck
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Looking very nice, well done 👍 One thing that puzzles me, however, is the orientation of the saw-blade versus the rollers. I would have expected that the rollers feed (planks) into the saw-blade ... And a little technical detail: the ends of leather drive-belts were attached with special metal 'agraffes' and they don't overlap. If they did overlap there is a jump and slip on the pulleys. Sorry to say, but I am bit disappointed over technological progress - a boring electric motor and not a little horizontal steam-engine, the boiler of which is fed with saw-dust and off-cuts
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Acrylic paints are complex emulsions with either water, or alcohol or a mixture of both as solvents. They may also contain surfactants as emulsifiers. Emulsions are very delicate things and can easily break down when using the wrong solvents, resulting in curdling with resulting clogging of the airbrush for instance. In such cases they also do not form the cross-linked network of acrylic molecules that form the paint layer. It appears that Vallejo uses a relatively simple system that can be diluted with water, dito. for the German Schmincke paints. I do not have experience with products of other manufacturers.
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Aren't you afraid that adding the stays later might pull (ever so slightly) the shrouds out of alignment and, hence, also the ratlines?
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That's quite a high-tech stand ! ... somehow it reminded me of those eerie-looking outside braces doctors use to align broken legs ... Perhaps the camera is challenged with the illumination and contrasts, but I found that the underwater body doesn't quite stand-off from the mounting board. It seems to make it difficult to appreciate it's wonderful lines and the artful planking job.
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The question is also of what period we are talking. CUTTY SARK for instance has a release gear fitted, which allows to safely let go the chain without using a sledgehammer. This kind of release gear, where the chain is hooked up to a rotating bar with thumbs sticking up, was used until stockless anchors came into use that pull up into the hawse-pipe. The bar has a lever at one end that is rotated by hand to lower the 'thumbs', thus relasing the chains.
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I am not an expert on the Vickers, but I think your photographs shows a tripod-mount as 'heavy' machine-gun for land-use. There, the tactical situation is different in the sense, that when you combat attcking infantry, you only need small changes in elevation, as the enemy is approaching or for spraying enemy positions at greater distance, you don't want to change your elevation once you are sure that you hit those positions. Hence the elevation screw. In naval combat situations, your own boat and that of an enemy are moving fast, hence you constantly have to adjust the elevation to keep the target under fire. I think naval light guns, including machine-guns had some sort of friction-brakes on the pivots and horizontal bearings. One sometimes sees little hand-levers with which these brakes can be adjusted or completely locked. These friction-bearings probaly are just split rings that can be pulled together with a screw that is operated by the hand-lever.
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Sometimes mothers aren't any better: ma mother wanted to make some 'fruit flambée', heated them in a large copper pan that was kept for the purpose, poured the rhum over them and put a match onto it - pouff, it was suddently all flames and white smoke: she had forgotten to turn off the extraction fan, which had sucked in the flames, which in turn ignited the grease in the filter. She was lucky to realise quickly what had happened and switched the fan off, so that no big fire developed, ouff ... Another time, there was some banging heard in the house and my mother, who was in my sister's room reading stories to her shouted at me (by habit in such cases), what I was doing ... but it wasn't me, when I checked the kitchen it was full of white smoke and foul smell - she had forgotten that she put some eggs to boil before she went to my sick sister's room and in the meantime all the water had evaporated and the egss exploded. Decades later, when the kitchen was dismantled, we still found mummified egg in some corners behind the cupboard
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Yep, those jeweller's flush cutters are very useful to nip off things flush. Had one for decades. They are meant to nip off steel watch springs, so they are very hard and tough. I use a piece of card/paper behind the shrouds, on which the shrouds and the ratlines have been printed. This gives you a good guide to check that you didn't pull the shroud out of alignment and that the ratlines are correctly spaced.
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Very convincing results ... we became to expect this from you While looking at it, it occurred to me, that such industrial premises may have had wooden pavement, that is small blocks of hardwood, set end-grain up into a bed of sand with asphalt caulking. Some cities in the 19th century even experimented with such pavement to reduce the noise from cart-wheels. Would be fun to make, glueing stacks of battens together and then sawing slices from it ...
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As I said, I never used any cleaning kits, but that may depend on your air-brush and how diligent you are with cleaning. Acrylics dry very fast, so as soon as you don't get an even spray pattern, you should rinse the air-brush and begin again. For rinsing, the air-brush needs to be taken apart as per instructions. Take care not to bend or dull the needle - I usually wipe it gently between the fingers. Careful re-insert it without poking it against any part of the mechanism. I gather they sell 'flow improvers' - this probably is some sort of surfactant adapted to the composition of the paint that will reduce the surface tension of it, which has two effects, it aids in forming very fine droplets and it facilitates the adherence to the paint on say plastic or metal surfaces.
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Indeed, Vallejo's ranges of different paint formulations (for brushing or for air-brushing) do not have the same range of colours. It is, however, possible to thin their other paint formulations for air-brushing. In this case one should use their recommended thinner(s), as other thinners could break down the emulsions on which these paints are based. I only have a very small air-brush with a 1 cc reservoir and found this sufficient for my relatively small projects. A small reservoir prevents you from wasting paint. As the paint ducts are simple and as I wash out the air-brush immediately after use under running water, I never had the need to use any special cleaning fluids or devices. I don't use it very often, so it had stayed with me now for nearly 40 years ... On pre-thinned paints vs. paint-tubes: it is correct, that compared to the amount of pigment you get for your money, they are expensive. However, me personally, I prefer to pay a premium price and have something ready to use after some thorough shaking. I do not waste any paint in mixing vessels etc. as the bottles have nozzles or pipettes from which just a few drops of paint are transferred into the air-brush. The pre-thinned paints seem to have a suprisingly long shelf-life. Some bottles I had for more than 30 years and they still work.
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